Extreme Mortman wonders if politicians, fearing the rapid spread of George-Allen-like-"macaca"-moments a la 2006, will withdraw even further from public view: "Could the YouTube revolution in politics backfire? We’ve become quite enamored with YouTube’s edgy ability to bring us raw, uncensored, unscripted moments from politics for our ridiculing pleasure. But is this public video voyeurism setting ourselves up for the next logical development: politicians will simply provide us less raw, uncensored, unscripted moments?"
Maybe. Although, we've had more debates in this presidential campaign than ever before (or so it seems), and yes, they're scripted and controlled to an extent too, but they give us the potential for something "unscripted" to happen (just ask Hillary's campaign about the October 30th debate and the driver's licenses/immigrants question. That definitely wasn't on their script.) And so far, I haven't seen any evidence suggesting that candidates aren't doing as many public events. Candidates seem to be out there quite a bit. On the other hand, you also have the Clinton campaign "planting" questions at supposedly open "town hall" meetings (to be fair, I can't believe her campaign is the only one doing it).
If in fact candidates are more and more reluctant to appear in public or to talk with real people, and the American people don't like it, then there's always this alternative: hold such candidates accountable at the ballot box.
